Occupiers Pre-Occupied with Economic Inequality

Brandon Sun “Small
World” Column, Monday, October 31 / 11Zack
Gross

What began as “Occupy Wall Street” (OWS)
has become a movement, spreading to cities across North America and
around the world.

And, it was a Canadian idea! The
very popular magazine Adbusters, based in British Columbia, initiated
the protests to shine a light on social and economic inequality,
corporate power and greed, and the financial sector’s influence over
our governments. One thousand cities and towns worldwide have
held or hosted Occupy protests.

Citing the growing disparity in our
world between rich and poor, and the lack of repercussions to those who
fed into our current global financial crisis, the magazine suggested in
its July edition that people take action and Occupy Wall Street on September
17th. And it has grown from there.

This movement appears to be leaderless,
and it is attracting a wide variety of people who are concerned about
the environment, community economic development, governance and
more. Although many are young activists, there are also
politicians, union officials, academics, church activists and ordinary
families participating.

"We are the 99%" is their cry!
This is in reference to the growing share of the US economy controlled
by the elite one percent.

World leaders, celebrities,
business people and others have weighed in on the debate, either with
criticism or praise for the protesters. One corporate CEO
pointed out that the top earners also pay into the economy large
amounts of taxes that aid people at all economic levels in
society.

Our own Prime Minister has said that Canadians have
much less to protest due to the financial regulations and social
programs our country offers.

Behind the protests and the debate is
the fact that we live in a “globalized” world.

The nation
state which has been the foundation of relationships and regulations
for centuries seems to be on its way out, while our daily lives and
incomes are governed more by the “macro-economics” of the corporate and
financial sectors.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank and the G8 (and maybe NATO) are our government now, whether
they are setting a course for African development, waging war on
terrorism or undemocratic regimes, or orchestrating social program cuts
in Europe in the so-called Eurozone Meltdown of 2011.

Those who run a globalized world where
decisions are made at the centre (Washington; New York; Davos, Switzerland) believe
(or say they do) that fully integrating our economies into their system
will bring about progress and prosperity for all, including the poorest
in developing countries.

Those who don’t support
“globalization” say that what the protesters are rightly focusing on is
a new colonialism where the face of poverty creation has been changed
(but it is still the wolf at the door!).

The proponents of globalization say that
the good news for the poor is that trade and foreign investment with
the Third World has grown exponentially in recent years.
Opponents of globalization say that while economic activity has grown,
it is no different than in colonial days.

The wealth being
created by increased export agriculture and mining in poor countries in
not being shared with them, it is being extracted from them.

The poverty that is deepening amongst
the poor in these difficult economic times is based in part on the
speculative activities of the financial sector that has driven up the
price of food for the most vulnerable, forcing people in India, Africa
and the Middle East to eat two meals per day instead of three, to drop
meat from their diets, and ultimately to join social movements like the
Arab Spring to protest oppression in their own countries.

Fifteen percent of the world population,
based in North America, Europe and Japan, still controls 75% of world
economic output.

Nowhere is this more evident than in
Sub-Saharan Africa where the number of extremely poor people has
doubled in the last generation and where financial outflow from unfair
trade deals and backlogged debt payments stands at three times the
amount coming into the region in financial aid.

Economic activity is based on export
agriculture and mining, which includes the buying up of African
farmland by corporations and wealthy countries and the use of chemicals
that harm people and the environment.

Inequalities lead to
communal violence (tribal, social) while conflict between rival armies
is also fueled by the uneven wealth available to those who can control
and exploit resources, from diamonds to cocoa.

The new landscape that surrounds us,
economically and politically, is that global financial forces direct
social and national priorities. At different times in world
history, when world leaders awoke for their daily activities, they
consulted their priests or generals and were told “what to
do.”

Today, a new force is in power, and the Occupy movement
is acting out its concern that we should all be aware of what is
happening and how it is affecting us.